She opened her writing-book again, and got her paper, and began to write. When he took this tone, there was nothing to be done but to obey. But when she had written a few lines, Margaret stopped suddenly with a little start, as if all at once overtaken by a sense of the meaning of what she was doing. “Papa,” she cried, the color leaving her face, two big tears starting into her eyes, “you are hiding something from me: you are ill!”
“No, no,” he said—“no, I am not at all ill; but, my Peggy, one never knows what may be going to happen, and I want to have your sisters here.”
“Oh,” cried Margaret, throwing away her book, “let them stay away—let them stay away! I want you all to myself. I can take care of you better than they can. Papa, I know you are ill, though you will not own it.”
“No, no,” he said, more feebly. “Run away and play, my little girl. I am—tired, just a trifle tired: and come back in half an hour, in half an hour, before post-time.”
“Here’s a cordial to ye, Sir Ludovic,” said John, and he made an imperative sign to his young mistress. “Let him be—let him be! he’s no weel enough to be teased about anything,” he whispered in her ear.
Margaret stood gazing at her father for a moment thunderstruck. Then she snatched up the letter she had begun, and rushed rapidly, yet on noiseless feet, out of the room. Oh, old John was cruel! Would she do anything to tease her father? And, oh! he was cruel not to tell her—to wish for Jean and Grace, and to hide it from her. She went down-stairs like the wind, her feet scarcely touching the steps, making a brightness in the dim light of the stair, and a movement in the stillness, to go to Bell, her referee in everything, and to ask what it meant. “Oh, Bell, what does it mean?” was on her lips; when suddenly, through the open door, Margaret saw two figures approaching, and stopped short. They were young men both, both pleasant to behold; but even at that agitated moment, and in the suddenness of the apparition, the girl observed the difference between them without knowing that she observed it. The difference was to the disadvantage of Rob, on whose behalf all her prepossessions were engaged; and this gave her a faint pang, the cause of which she was at the moment quite unconscious of. “Oh!” she cried, not able to restrain her little outcry of trouble, as she met their surprised and questioning looks—“oh, papa is ill; I think he is very ill; and I don’t know what to do.”
The second of the visitors was Randal Burnside, who had met Rob Glen at the door; and it was he who answered first, eagerly, “I passed Dr. Hume’s carriage on the road, at a cottage door. Shall I go back and tell him to come here?”
“Oh, will you?” cried Margaret, two big tears trembling out with a great plash, like big rain-drops, from her anxious eyes. “Oh, will you? That is what I want most.”
He did not stop to tell his errand, or to receive any greeting or acknowledgment, but turned, with his hat in his hand, and sped away. Rob had said nothing; he only stood gazing at her wistfully, and took her hand when the other was gone. “I see what is the matter,” he said, tenderly; “is there anything new? is there any cause for fear?”
In her excitement, Margaret was not like herself. The touch and the tone of tenderness seemed to go through her with a strange, almost guilty, sense of consolation; and yet she was angry that it was not he who had gone to serve her practically. She drew her hand away, frightened, angry, yet not displeased. “Why did you let him go?” she cried, with a reproach that said more than confession.